Taking the leap of faith

In March of this year, I will be sitting the Graduate Australian Medical School Admission Test (hereafter referred to as the great evil, the test that shall not be named, or the GAMSAT). I know this because I just paid my registration fee for it. $308 for the privilege of sitting somewhere in Wellington, (the weekend the Who are playing Auckland no less!) for a 6 hour test.

I have wanted to be a doctor ever since finding out that being a midwife payed terribly and I would spent most of my time examining vagina's. All day. I decided that there had to be something that would have a better reward and would be less disturbing. So medicine was the only option.

I have aimed for med school three times now. The first was as a school leaver - having left Australia to attend high school in NZ for this very reason - where the minimum entry marks in Bursary where 361. I got a measly 273. It was sufficient for all the other courses I had applied for, so I dutifully went off to do my Health Science degree, thinking that I would make it into second year. I was naive, I was young (16), I had never fallen hard enough to really, truly want it. I wanted it for the mana, I wanted it for the status. I didn't get it. And that hurt.

All was not lost and so I headed off to finish my degree, taking papers I thought I had to do in order to get in post-bachelors and I hated each and every minute of them. I barely scraped through some of them, I failed. Looking back now, I would like to shake myself and only do subjects that I was interested in. Oh, and drink less. I did not make it in post-bachelors, having left two papers to do. Instead jetting off for my ill-fated trip to England.

In England I worked as a PA to a neurosurgeon, then several neurologists. I loved it, I hated it. I could feel that I was wasting my potential, that I was wasting my life because I wasn't enjoying London, I wasn't living the life that I felt I could and should be living. The neurosurgeon was surprised that some of my caliber was working as a PA. It was shameful. Not quite as shameful as losing my job because they decided they didn't like my visa anymore - one month after hiring me. That was my lowest point - it was so painful that I couldn't take being in London anymore. My flat hat I was living in was a hovel with an overbearing asshole landlord/flatmate, I lost my job, I didn't have true friends. It was clear - London and the UK were not for me.

I flew back to home via NZ. While there (here), my friends convinced me that I should be living in NZ and finish my bachelors off. One semester of summer school and I was done. I could do the actual graduation thing! My faculty sent me an information brochure on graduate programmes and I figured that I had come this far - why not? So I did a Post Graduate Diploma in Health Science (Youth Health) as something to make me stand out from everyone else. It was a great experience, sometimes painful but very good for my self esteem after the wreak that was 2006. As part of my 'independent study' paper, I did a dissertation on Pro Ana Communities. No one that I talked to knew what they were or what went on in them. I had a very specialised form of knowledge - I was the expert. It was an interesting feeling - especially when I got it back and I discovered I had an A. I was gobsmacked.

Various people encouraged me to go further, do the full masters. So I did. Just like that, I was enrolled and found a supervisor (although she did turn out to be useless and batshit crazy). I came up with the topic while standing in line at Sir Edmund Hilary's Public Viewing. I basically just wanted something that I could watch a lot of TV for, and for whatever reason, I decided that this would be it. It certainly didn't turn out like that - in fact, what I had in mind would have been more suitable for a full PhD thesis. At any rate, in Decemeber 2008 I handed in my thesis after being told that I would fail, or that I would need to take an extension. If I had taken the extension that my old supervisor and the Head of the Department had decided that I needed to take, I would not be done for another month. Oh hell no. I expect to find out the results in the next 4-8 weeks. I want to know, but right now I am safe from failing because I don't know.

Which brings me back to the point. Completing my Masters has given me a final, third shot at making it into Med School. I did some research and found that having a Masters gives you a final GPA of 6.5, and the University of Queensland accepts such. I also have an outside chance at getting into Griffith, although I will have to kick the interview because my GPA is so low (5.20, with 5.00 being minimum).

And so on March 21st, I will sit the 6 hour gamsat with thousands of others. The test has no rhyme or reason for their marking schedule and to get into UQ, I will need a score of at least 65. That is my minimum. I will get it. I must. I am not concerned with the first two sections, Comprehension and Essay Writing - the first requiring speed reading (I try to not buy books because I read them too fast) and the second requiring creative bullshitting (I believe that is called my thesis writing, hee). I am concerned about my Science ability, which will be tested on for three hours. God, I'm scared.

But I will do this, and I will succeed. I must, so I shall.